In Short: Faculty Awards, Major Gifts, and Cross-Registration with TCNJ

Professor Beth Lew-Williams received the Bancroft Prize in American history and diplomacy on April 23 for her 2025 book John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law. Lew-Williams, the director of Princeton’s Program in Asian American Studies, was one of two honorees this year, along with historian Emilie Connolly of Brandeis University. The Bancroft judges called John Doe Chinaman a “timely, humane, and necessary book” that “gives a new face to the story of Chinese immigrants, exposing the vast scale of legal limitations they endured.” The book, based largely on research at local courthouses, archives, and historical societies in the Western U.S., covers a period of 70 years (1850-1920) during which thousands of laws were used to discriminate against and marginalize Chinese laborers. 

Alumnus Albert Maguire ’82 and professor emeritus David Gross were honored with Breakthrough Prizes in life sciences and fundamental physics, respectively, at an April 26 ceremony in Los Angeles. Maquire, an ophthalmologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was recognized “for developing a therapy for inherited retinal degeneration that became the first FDA-approved gene therapy for a genetic disease.” The award citation for Gross, a 2004 Nobel laureate in physics, highlighted “a lifetime of groundbreaking contributions to theoretical physics, from the strong force to string theory,” along with his advocacy for scientific research around the world. 

Additional Breakthrough Foundation honors for Princetonians included New Frontiers prizes for mathematics instructor Mingjia Zhang, physics graduate student Carolina Figueiredo, former astrophysics postdoc Mathew Madhavacheril, mathematician Anna Skorobogatova *24 (ETH Zürich), and physicists Thomas Dumitrescu *13 (UCLA), J. Colin Hill *14 (Columbia University), and Benjamin Safdi *14 (University of California, Berkeley). 

The University announced a major gift from Andy Florance ’86 and Heather Florance to support the Princeton Quantum Initiative, a cross-disciplinary effort led by researchers in engineering, chemistry, and physics. The initiative launched in 2019 and added a new quantum science and engineering Ph.D. program in 2024. A Quantum Institute building, scheduled for completion in 2030, will be built near the intersection of Ivy Lane and Fitzrandolph Road. 

Another major gift from the Venture Forward campaign by Christopher A. Cole ’81 and Barbie Cole ’82 *85 will fund the Climate and Energy Challenge within the Grand Challenges program at Princeton’s High Meadows Environmental Institute. The Griffin-Cole Climate and Energy Grand Challenge Fund supports research and teaching in pursuit of climate and energy solutions.

Beginning in the fall semester, graduate and undergraduate students at Princeton University and The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) will be able to cross-register in selected courses. Students can apply for one course at the other school that is “not offered by their home institution and is not substantially similar to offerings there,” according to a TCNJ press release.

Quentin Colón Roosevelt ’27, a history major from Washington, D.C., and the president of Princeton’s Undergraduate Student Government, has been awarded a Truman Scholarship for graduate studies in public service. He hopes to pursue an MPA/J.D. dual degree in law and public service, according to a University release.